Catherine Sevenau's Blog: Writings~Rambles~Rhymes, page 58

How Did I Get Here?

In 1943, my father exchanged his iceman’s uniform for a suit and tie. Union Ice Company was having financial difficulties, and Dad had enough sense to get out of the cold. Offered a management position with Sprouse Reitz, he had the option of running a five-and-dime in Sonora or Sonoma. What a difference one letter […]

Final Migration

Elizabeth Ann “Liz/Betty” (Clemens) Duchi 1939 – 2004 My sister Liz knew everything about everything—and what she didn’t know—she made up. Her library was lined with books from architecture, antique lamps and art nouveau to tomes on history, the human body and Henry VIII. She also had every field-guide on flora, fauna, and all things […]

Buck Fever

September 1949 • Twain Harte, Tuolumne County, California~ September is deer season. Dad was initiated into deer hunting up in the Twain Harte hills above Sonora in the canyon behind Sugarpine. He’d been pheasant hunting with his brother-in-law, Jim Fouch, up near Colusa a few times, but deer hunting was a whole ‘nother ball of wax. […]

To Raise a Mother’s Eyebrows

March 1935 • Watsonville, California (excerpt from a family memoir) My oldest sister Carleen was born in Watsonville in 1935. Mom’s sister Verda and her family lived close by, and the two families spent every weekend together.  On Saturday nights they played cards or had dinner at the Chinese restaurant. Sunday afternoons there were picnics and […]

Labor Pains

Lordy, I swear it was easier giving birth to my children than birthing a book. To share my pain: Last September a voice inside me told me to record an audio of some passages from a family memoir I wrote ten years ago. After one editor, an illustrator, a book cover/website designer, a voice coach, […]

Might as Well Be Hung For a Sheep

Sonora, California, 1940s ~ No Sunday or Holy Day passed without Dad taking the children to Mass. Some Sundays they attended church in Columbia, other Sundays in Jamestown, sometimes they drove to Tuolumne, during summer camping trips they heard Mass sitting on the hard benches at the outdoor theatre in Pinecrest, but most often they went to St. Patrick’s […]

Dressed to the Nines

Early 1946 • Sonora, California ~ Mom decided life would be easier if Claudia, the youngest at the time and the only one still at home, went to school. Dressed in her netted hat to set off her pinned-up hair, a pastel polka-dotted shoulder-padded two-piece outfit, pearls, silk stockings and white open-toed wedge heels, she trundled […]

“It’ll Be Fun!” she says

“You know what we need to do?” she says. “Let’s take Deb to the coast for oysters. It’ll be fun!” she says. We’ll take the scenic back road; the drive is beautiful,” she says. I love the coast and I love oysters so I agree it’s a grand idea. However, I have a brain lapse […]

Heathens and Hellions

Sonora, California 1948 Dad left their guidance to the Church, Mom left it to the winds. Their children ran through the house like heathens and hellions, and not only did they have the run of the house, they had the run of the town. Most summer days the three older ones spent their time exploring […]

A Family, an Old House, a Small Town

Everyone in Sonora, a community of about 3,000 people, knew our family. We lived there in the mid 1940s to the early ’50s, and my father was active in the Catholic Church, local politics, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Lions, Elks, and Rotary clubs. Lean and on the lanky side, he was prematurely gray, wore wire-rimmed […]